Michael McClure
quotesMichael McClure biographyreviewsMichael McClure books
Michael McClureWelcome to the official website of Michael McClure. Here you'll find poems, interviews, essays, information on books, CDs & DVDs, and the latest news.

We invite you to join the newsletter list, to be notified of upcoming readings, appearances, and events.

(required)

(optional)

Michael McClure's pages at Light & Dust are an excellent introduction to his work. They present over one hundred of his poems, a selection of poems written in beast language, and an excerpt from his play, "The Beard.".

Also included is an array of reviews & critical considerations of his work by Anne Waldman, Nobel biologist Francis Crick, Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Creeley, and others.

Visit Michael McClure's Light & Dust pages here.

On October 14, 2008 Michael McClure gave a reading as part of the The Holloway Series in Poetry at UC Berkeley. Michael's portion of the program begins about 24 minutes in, and is followed by a question and answer session. The evening begins with a reading by Elizabeth Marie Youngs.
Just click the arrow on the player above to watch.

In Memoriam:
BRUCE CONNER
1933-2008

THE ARTIST

for Bruce Conner
THE ARTIST has faces that are nude ladies and feathers.
Women pose in the visage of the whirlpool
           raising bare arms and arching bare thighs.
Tentacles of squid sway down among pinions
of African eagles from the artist's beret
and they tangle white hair.
   In the blackness of his face, spider webs and lichens,
   are matted together making a waterfall that splashes
   down to the chin.
His head tilts down, staring into the vision.
The glow of his consciousness
                              is an aureole.

    --A HUGE WHOLE THOUGHT in all of its myriadness
                         is what he grasps for.
His black velvet beret is a dome of power
                         in the haunted light of the room.

IT IS ALL OUT THERE.
EVERYTHING IS OUT THERE!
              It is superlatively clear.
It will all come together in connected fragments
--oceanic!--floating--everywhere
               in the nineteen directions.
He sees it clearly--it is all so endless,
so sensory.

His satin neckband is twisted and knotted
with demon emanations.
His gentle old jacket is awash
with mystic
wrinklings.

The jewel that he wears is a star cluster
carved out of coal.

Horseback rides are engraved in the gold frame,
there are childhood memories of fields of grass
               with a mouth on each blade
telling stories
of the origins of pure matter and nothingness.
Foxes circle around it all
and they bark
in honor
of the softness of mulberries.